No contacts in address book, can not find address book anymore

Question

I was trying to switch default email accounts, Hughes.net was the default and Yahoo the secondary and I wanted to swap these around as I am no longer using Hughes net.
In doing so I lost all email folders and address books. I have rebuilt the folders but now I see that I have no address book in either accounts.
Are they gone for good?
Thanks.
Jeff

Answer 1

There are two default address books in Thunderbird. Both of these address books can be copy pasted between mail accounts.
''Personal Address Book'' is called '''abook.mab'''
''Collected Addresses '' is called '''history.mab'''
These are stored in your Profile folder in the mail account name. But it would need your old mail account to be intact in order to copy anything from it to another mail account.
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird
* C:\Users\Windows user name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\Profile name\ mail account name
The AppData folder is folder is a hidden folder; to show hidden folders, open a Windows Explorer window and choose "Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab) → Show hidden files and folders".
If your original mail account is still there: Profiles\Mail\mail account name
You could simply recover it. Info here:
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_deleted_mail_accounts
Remember, when performing any changes in Profiles folder, Thunderbird must be closed first.